When launching the Biver brand in 2023, father-and-son duo Jean-Claude and Pierre Biver chose to begin their journey with the Carillon Tourbillon Minute Repeater. This highly complex watch combines two masterpiece complications and establishes a distinctive design language and approach to watchmaking, both central to the brand. It served as a launch pad for Biver’s core ideas and uncompromising attitude. It is an example of what a Biver watch can be at its very best and a prologue for what is yet to come.
Now, Biver writes the next chapter in this story with a return to watchmaking basics. The Biver Automatique is a threehand, automatic watch meant for daily wear. It combines influences from the past with a distinctly 21st-century look and it establishes a foundation on which future watches and complications can be built. It is a watch that looks simple at first glance and reveals its complexity over time – it rewards the patient and surprises the curious.
“A watch showing just the hours, minutes, and seconds is the most essential form of our art. Distilling complexity down to its purest, simplest incarnation can be its own kind of masterpiece, found in its absolute perfection and discipline,” says co-founder Jean-Claude Biver. “If you want to play the piano, you must first master scales and classical music before you can learn to play jazz.”
When Simple Is Anything But
Pared down to its most basic functions, a wristwatch tells the time. The Biver Automatique has three central hands and shows the hours, minutes, and seconds. Nothing more, nothing less. This simplicity is deceptive, though.
The solid 18k white and rose gold dials are each housed in a case made of the corresponding colour metal and each features an array of hand-applied finishes. These give them depth and dimensionality, suggesting a two-tone finish and showing off each material’s inherent possibilities. This is further emphasized by the applied 18k gold markers and matching hands (both with anthracite finishes for better legibility), the applied and black-polished “Biver” signature at 12 o’clock, and the applied 18k gold railroad track around the perimeter. As the light shifts and changes, these dials reveal their complexity and richness, looking slightly different with each passing moment.
All of this is housed in a platinum or rose gold case measuring a classic 39mm across and just 10mm thick. The brightly polished bezel and brushed lugs echo the straight and circular finishes found on the dials, extending the long brushing lines and giving each watch a cohesive feeling throughout, whether it’s worn on a leather strap or the signature five-link Biver bracelet.
A Brand New Calibre
At the heart of the Biver Automatique is the brand-new Calibre JCB-003. Developed in close collaboration with partners at Dubois Depraz, it was designed from the ground up to be a foundation not just for this watch but for future watches as well. This meant creating the most technically sound movement possible, with all the necessary architecture to make it adaptable as Biver grows and explores other complications.
The movement combines a simple three-hand time display, including a central seconds hand, with an automatic winding system that utilizes a 22k gold micro-rotor and allows for hand-winding via the crown as well. This offers collectors the opportunity to have that tactical relationship with their watch, especially if the 65-hour power reserve has been exhausted and it is being put on from “empty.” A zero-reset mechanism also snaps the seconds hand back to 12 o’clock when the crown is pulled to the time-setting position, allowing the wearer to precisely set the time down to the second.
“The Calibre JCB-003 is a cornerstone on which we are building the Biver brand,” says co-founder Pierre Biver. “From the beginning, it was engineered with high performance and elevated decoration in mind. Our approach reflects a deep appreciation for movement architecture and a desire to balance the best of watchmaking past, present and future. The creation of this calibre is the first step in creating a distinctive type of Biver horology.”
The shapes of the bridges are sculpted to reveal elements of the drive train, barrel, and winding system, and each features a combination of guilloché, anglage, and black polishing to give it a unique character. In particular, the cloud de Paris guilloché patterns that adorn the bridges vary in scale, swirling out from the centre of the micro-rotor and contributing a sense of dynamism to the calibre’s overall appearance. No surface is left untouched and the calibre quite literally radiates light, representing the care and attention paid to each element.
Step Into The Atelier
Hard stone dials are central to Biver’s ethos of connecting each watch to eternity. With that in mind, the brand will produce a limited quantity of Automatique timepieces each year with stone dials. This will be called the Atelier Series and each unique watch represents the very essence of Biver watchmaking. Each stone will only be available for a limited time and in small quantities, allowing the brand to tell different stories through different stones over time.
To inaugurate the Atelier Series, Biver is introducing two stone dial Automatique models: The platinum case paired with rich black sanded obsidian and the 18k rose gold case paired with Pietersite, a dark blue stone with swirls of white and orange. Each offers a different take on the Automatique, blending technical mastery with a bit of visual poetry.
“We want the Automatique and the Calibre JCB-003 to bring more people into the Biver community,” continues Pierre Biver. “Hopefully they communicate our values, our ideas, and our taste to a new group of collectors and enthusiasts across the world, laying the foundation for years of exploration to come.”
Biver Automatique Technical Specifications
Plat / Gold / Strap CHF 78’000
Plat / Gold / Bracelet CHF 107’000
Plat / Obsidian / Strap CHF 92’000
Plat / Obsidian / Bracelet CHF 121’000
Rose / Gold / Strap CHF 75’000
Rose / Gold / Bracelet CHF 94’000
Rose / Pietersite / Strap CHF 89’000
Rose / Pietersite / Bracelet CHF 108’000
Functions
- Hours, Minutes, Seconds
- Bi-directional micro-rotor, Zero-reset mechanism
Movement
- Calibre JCB-003
- Diameter: 30.6mm
- Thickness: 4.0mm
- Frequency: 3.5 Hz (25,200 v.p.h.)
- Winding: Automatic via bi-directional 22k gold micro-rotor;
- can also be hand-wound via the crown.
- Power Reserve: 65 hours
- Jewels: 36
- Decoration: Circular graining on gold plates; guilloché, black polishing, and straight-graining on gold bridges; circular graining and black polishing on gear train; black polishing and satin finishing on steel components
Case
- Material: Platinum (Pt 950) or 18k Rose Gold
- Diameter: 39mm
- Thickness: 10mm
- Lug-to-Lug: 47.55mm
- Lug Width: 19mm
- Sapphire crystal with inner anti-reflective coating
- Display caseback with sapphire crystal
- Water Resistance: 80 meters / 260 feet (8 ATM)
Display
- Dial: Solid 18k white or rose gold dial (to match the case)
- Hands: 18k white or rose gold, satin-finished and hand-beveled with four interior angles
- Markers: 18k white or rose gold applied hour markers with anthracite finish; applied 18k gold railway track
- Atelier Collection Dials: Sanded Obsidian (platinum) and Pietersite (18k rose gold)
Strap & Bracelet
- Leather strap, with platinum or rose gold pin buckle
- Five-row Biver bracelet, in either platinum or rose gold
Biver: A Family Approach To Watchmaking
After 50 years at the highest echelons of the watchmaking business, Jean-Claude Biver decided to partner with his son Pierre Biver and to embark on a magnificent new adventure together. In 2023, the two passionate collectors launched a new kind of watch brand, making timepieces that push the boundaries of watchmaking art and chart a vision for the future of what high-end Swiss watchmaking can be.
Liberated from the usual corporate constraints, they assembled a dream team of top specialists, each a master in their respective fields, to craft truly extraordinary timepieces without compromise. The inaugural creation, the Carillon Tourbillon, features a tourbillon, minute repeater, and a micro-rotor, holds a special place in their hearts, and they are excited now to be laying the foundation for the future of the Biver brand with the introduction of the anything-but-basic Automatique.